Meet the man behind the three-decade crusade against GMOs
Jeremy Rifkin has the ear of many world leaders
Though it’s been much in the news in the past few years—with food labeling initiatives being pushed in more than a dozen states—the debate around genetically modified organisms began in the late 1970s. It was largely started by Jeremy Rifkin and his think tank, Foundation on Economic Trends (FET). In fact, Rifkin proudly admitted:
“You know where the opposition to GMOs started? In my office. We started the whole opposition worldwide.”
Rifkin began shaping the narrative around genetic engineering when he published his 1977 book, Who Should Play God?, a warning against the dangers of the new practice.
A year later, Rifkin started his think tank, and a year after that he and his co-author Ted Howard waded into a Supreme Court fight on whether the patenting of GMOs would be permitted. They warned the justices that stimulating commercial genetic engineering though granting of patents would mean more GMOs and that would “irreversibly pollute the planetary gene pool in radically new ways.”
Patentable GMOs meant commercially viable GMOs, and that meant more of them. Rifkin and Howard’s stated goal was precaution, but their apocalyptic pronouncements and attempts to prevent an industry growing around this technology seemed more like an attempt at prohibiting it.
In reaction to the ruling, Rifkin’s think tank, then named The People’s Business Commission, stated that it was a “fundamental assault on the sanctity of life itself.” Such religious undertones recur in Rifkin’s work, from the title of his book Who Should Play God?, to rallying 60 religious leaders to speak out against genetic engineering in humans, to claiming an upsurge in Christianity would stop the rise of GMOs.
Rifkin had lost the patent battle, but continued to fight a war on genetic engineering. In the years after the Supreme Court made its decision, he kept up a strident media campaign, even saying in a 1983 interview that genetic engineering reminded him of Hitler’s plan for a master race, and that it could be the biggest existential threat to humanity since nuclear weapons.
In 1992, the first commercial GMO food, the Flvr Savr tomato, was submitted for approval to the FDA. The next year saw the release of Jurassic Park, a modern Frankenstein tale of a curious scientist unintentionally creating an existential threat to mankind. FDA approval of the Flvr Savr tomato was imminent, and Rifkin and his think tank saw an opportunity to leverage the attention the blockbuster was getting by highlighting what they saw as life mimicking art.
Volunteers from Rifkin’s “Pure Food Campaign,” a spin off from FET, picketed theaters showing Jurassic Park in 100 US cities, handing out fliers featuring “a dinosaur pushing a grocery basket labeled “Bio-tech Frankenfoods.”
In 1999, Rifkin changed tactics and actually applied for patents on human/animal hybrids like the “humanzee” and the “humouse”—the idea being to hold the 20-year patent and prevent anyone else from applying for any similar ones. The same year he flew to France to “bolster the French government’s resistance to the import of genetically modified (GM) foods.”
Since 2000, Rifkin’s influence has grown. He has advised three presidents of the European Union—including current president Jean-Claude Juncker—and the leadership of the European Parliament. So, it’s no surprise the EU has taken a highly precautionary attitude towards GMOs.
He has also advised other European leaders, including the presidents of Germany and France, both countries that have banned the growing of GMO crops. In 2003, he said in regards to an EU push for GMO labeling:
“I think European action marks the beginning of the end for agricultural biotechnology.”
Rifkin has since broadened his influence, and now works closely with the Communist Party of China. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang is a fan on Rifkin’s work, most recently designing Chinas 13th five-year plan around his book The Third Industrial Revolution. Whether Rifkin’s influence in Chinese political circles has anything to do with the countries historically strict GMO- laws is unclear. However, a new push there is lately softening the country’s stance.
He also has ties to the current initiatives for GMO labeling in the US, which are spearheaded by the Organic Consumers Association (OCA.) The OCA was spun off from the International Center for Technology Assessment which was spun off from the Pure Food Campaign which was a project of Rifkin’s Foundation on Economic Trends. The current head of the Organic Consumers Association, Ronnie Cummins, was also a past program director at Rifkin’s think tank. Cummins has plainly stated that his efforts are part of a larger goal of “driving genetically engineered crops off the market all over the world.”
With the proliferation of anti-GMO regulation worldwide, it’s clear Rifkin’s 30-year crusade has been remarkably successful, particularly given the consensus in the scientific community about the safety of GMOs, which is actually even stronger than agreement around climate change.
